How to extract variable labels.

[Leon Kockaya]

Hello everyone, I have a question about the use of variable labels.


Scenario:

Looking at the code below, you will notice that I am writing a variables name in a text.file if its value is greater than 0. However, instead of the variables name (`var'), I want to write down its label. How can I achieve this? Thank you for the help.


Code:

file open keywords using `file_title'.txt, text write replace

local N = _N

forvalues i = 1 / `N' {
file write keywords _n
file write keywords _n
file write keywords "Article: `= pdf_name[`i']'" _n
file write keywords _n
file write keywords "Keywords:" _n
foreach var of varlist `var_list' {
if `var'[`i'] > 0 {
file write keywords "`var'" _n
}
else if `var'[`i'] == 0 {
}
}
}
file close keywords

[William Lisowski]

local lbl : variable label `var'
file write keywords "`lbl'" _n

[Leon Kockaya]

local lbl : variable label `var'
file write keywords "`lbl'" _n

This worked. Thank you very much.

[William Lisowski]

It can be shorted to

file write keywords "`: variable label `var''"

similar to the way you handle getting the value of pdf_name[`i'] without generating an intermediate local macro.

But on Statalist I tend to like to spell things out step-by-step to make it more accessible to later readers who may not be familiar with a particular shortcut. The important lesson in this post was the macro function variable label, one of many such functions described in the output of help macro.